Shiny stuff Pt 1

One of the main things to do before painting is to fit all the shiny hardware... And then take it all off again!

Frustrating but the alternative would be to paint and then risk messing it up either by drilling in the wrong place or worse.

This includes lights, bonnet locks etc. Given I haven't bought these yet I've started on the fuel filler and rear nudge bar and overriders.

The rebated filler position on the AK is created deliberately to allow the Aston type filler cap to fit and still pass the IVA.

Whilst it's not strictly round hence the trianglular 'centre point' this is good enough to cut the hole for the underside of the filler flange to sit in the right place.

See below, now just need to decide how to fix it down. Bolts and nuts, self rappers or adhesive.

I need to acquire the right hose and then cut through the inner wing to feed into boot for tank connection.

The nudge bar overriders set up holes are marked on the body.

Using a level and comparing to boot floor mountin positions over the read rail I can see these are in an accurate position so just drill carefully and open out.

Photo below before I'd added the studding for lower position in overriders.

Will get another photo of fully positioned soon.

Just need to source some grommets to help protect paintwork and keep the elements out too.

Final hot stuff post?

Hurray! My shoulder is getting better. It's not perfect yet but I'm able to start some less demanding tasks.

So on to finishing off the hot air management part of the heater.

The AK bodyshell comes with a fibreglass  plenum for the heater matrix.

This requires drilling and pipe fitting to feed ductwork which will lead hot air to the screen demist vents.

I'm choosing to also to provide heat for both the driver and passenger footwells too as the polo heater has plenty of grunt.

So using standard waste outlet pipe I've marked up the top of the plenum for drilling.

And a trial hole and test proves the interference fit I was lookin for - a small rap with a rubber mallet and this is held strongly.

With combined silicone adhesive sealant compound this should hold firm and be air tight too.

So with 4 holes drilled time for a quick check and mark up for where the adhesive will go to seal.

It's been a while since my trainers have made an appearance in the photos so thought I'd include the one above.

4 pipe outlets temporarily fitted.

Dr Who monster creators will be calling me up to help them with their next creation after they've seen the below.

I've decided to seal the hoses onto the outlets first before sealing it onto the body tub as the hose is a tight fit and it's easier to do now. The hose clips will eventually be removed.

Final preparation of the heater matrix above with making a foam insert and gluing that in position too. 

Note the holes either side of the matrix. I've made small brackets which will hold the plenum in place whilst sealing on.

Thankfully this will be hidden from view so the sealing has been thorough.

The last piece of this puzzle was to join the heater motor wires to longer pieces and feed through back into the cabin where they can be connected to an appropriate switch and fuse config.

Where cables come through the body they must be protected. Being a fan of doing the job properly (because chafing wires eventually make fires - you heard it here first!) I've chose to grommet the hole and feed conduit through too. The fan wires are inside the convoluted tube. 

(The other grommet hole is for the reverse light and neutral/park safety switch wires which come from the gear selector - ran them under the tub as I didn't want to have them running on top of the transmission tunnel as can be seen below)

I fired the engine up once this this was all set. The good news is hot air is plentiful.

The bad news is that the fan motor is squealing on medium and high speed. Which is a bit of a pain as it was fine when I tested it out of the car.

On to the desnagging list it goes :-(

Handbrake Pt1

As with many things in life chores get in the way of having fun, and with the usual work bunfight in Barcelona, rehearsing for a gig and breaking my big toe (in two places) I haven't had much time in January.

And now February. I have just had to have a shoulder operation, which means being in a sling for 4 weeks. Then another probable month before I can do any serious work on the car so I'm catching up with blog posts instead.

So having messed up the thread on one of the body attachment points from over zealous application of the handbrake when first testing it, I drilled out the thread, drilled right through the chassis to underside and aquired a longer bolt and nut to go through - so this is akin to the scuttle hoop attachments bolts now instead. Better in my view.

However the challenge still remains of the handbrake lever position.  With the hole now drilled through the body for the cable to pass through, the natural position for the handbrake to take is shown below

This is too far forwards and the top edge of the bracket is too high against the door sill lip. Next photo shows that more.

And the bottom inboard edge of the bracket will possibly interfere with seat at this point too. I removed and tidied 5mm from inboard edge of the bracket to help with that.

Looking at the image below one of the problems is clear - where the bracket has been welded the heat has caused it to move out of true 90 degree angle - probably removed from the jig a bit quickly. 

Having a brief chat with Jon at AK options were he'd replace it or I could give it a tonk with something heavy to bend the angle in first.

I took the latter and with a couple of large hits got it back to 90 degrees.

The XJS mounting bolts also need trimming down as they will interfere with internal trim panel.

With these things done the position is much better so I painted up with por15 rust prevention paint as the hand rack mechanism has a plastic cover over which I will put a leather cover too,

Finally mounting photo to follow... Which I've now taken and put below.

And no the blocks of wood aren't staying... It's not a Morgan you know!

Roll bars and seat belt mountings

So next on the list of things to do was to open out the roll hoop body holes as these were a very tight fit and would be liable to squeak and rattle if there were any touching parts against the body. This was simply done by marking up with a pen and then carefully using the dremel to open out the holes.

Linked to this are the top seat belt mountings which are attached to a bracket under the rear cockpit return incorporating the rear roll hoop mount.

Top right of above photo there is a forward protruding metal lug into which the upper seat belt eye bolt screws into from the underside of the cockpit return.

This hole is not predrilled so it's a measure, drill pilot hole... Mess it up (due to measuring from wrong end!!! Momentary brain fug)

Once the hole is located in the RIGHT place then open out and test as per below.

Passenger side done without muffing up above.

Not fully screwed in above but these are the official eye bolts, 8.8 strength rating. The holes needed opening out a bit more to allow the eyebolt to screw right in.

Now I just need to locate and open out the lower holes either side of seat positions and chase out the threads ensure there's no powder coat blocking them.

It's alive, really alive.

Ref. my earlier comment of Toad of Toad Hall I am now truly bitten by the bug. I drove the fledgling Cobra for the first time just before the new year and again on New Year's Day.

Not far, just to the end of the unadopted road which is the shared drive with 7 other properties.

It was below freezing hence the water vapour in photo up above, that's not engine smoke!

And with friendly neighbour Tony on hand  with a few thoughts too.

If I can find out how to put video up here I will post a short video or two too.

What can I say, what a feeling of accomplishment that everything I've done so far is ok, and behaving as it should. 

The brakes were dire the first time but given that the discs were probably still coated with grease, wd40 and who knows what else combined with brand new pads it was akin to trying to stop an avalanche with a small snow shovel.

However a few runs and the brakes started working better and it felt a lot more controlled (I was coasting in 1st with engine idling at this point!)

More important to me (odd as it seems) was that I had put the transmission unit back together again correctly and that the reprogramming was right. On New Year's Day I did a few quicker runs that got 2nd and 3rd gear involved too - clearly on gravel it wasn't that quick but everything responding as it should.

The downside was that whilst I'd had over 3" clearance of the sump to ground when last checked, now the body was on, all the fluids filled up etc it was down to 2"... Meaning I clonked the sump on the 2nd run going over a small speed hump too quickly. A sign of things to come?

Looking at the front wheel arches there wasn't much clearance there and one of the tyres rubbed against a body bolt that had been put in from the wrong side too. So turning round the bolt and raising the suspension up from starting position gave 3 1/2 " clearance plus no snagging.

The wheel sits better in the wheel arch now although some will find this too high.

Steering column

Having rebled the brake system (thanks Dave S for being chief pedal pusher) one of the last jobs to sort before the car can technically move under its own steam in a controlled manner is the steering column.

The final piece of this puzzle after sorting the lower shaft clearance against the water thermostat cover is the bearing as the upper shaft passes through the drivers footwell wall. Again it's all pretty tight but the AK body comes predrilled with a hole to locate this shaft through however it does need a beering to keep it supported, running true and not snag on the cladding.

AK make a custom fit nylon bearing which is my last resort but I'd rather have a metal roller bearing designed for shaft support if possible.

The issue with the steering shaft is that it's a bit over 3/4" (19.05mm?) where the splines are that join to the UJ and then narrows to more like 16mm or thereabouts where the shaft passes through the bulkhead in the footwell. This makes locating it centrally in the bearing and securing it more difficult.

Enter simply bearings (.co.uk)

I purchased an oval bearing with an eccentric collar that I hoped would allow me to lock it to close to 16mm once tightened. See below you can just make out the non uniform collar profile.

I tried a few ways of getting this to grip the steering shaft but it was too loose.

What also became apparent was the need for a spacer behind the bearing to allow the back of the bearing to be proud of the housing due to the downward angle of the shaft as it comes through the bulkhead.

So, for another £7.50 I ordered the non eccentric version and designed a split shim setup which would interface with the two grub screws in the bearing insert being 3/4" outside diameter and 16.05 mm inside diameter and Tony next door machined his magic again and produced the shims and spacer for me from my plywood template.

Above are the parts and below rough fitting

So just a bit of fettling and contouring needed to get a better fit.

The finished result has enough clearance for exhaust headers and makes the steering feel very smooth with no 'hard-spots' which would be an IVA fail so this is a big tick in the box I think.

Diff cover version 3

Just when you thought I'd forgotten about it, it's time for version 3 of the diff cover.

(You might remember that earlier last year  I had two failed attempts at getting a cover to fit on the underside of the differential which covers the fuel hoses that run underneath there protecting them from bumps but also heat from the exhaust pipes)

So having hit and bashed Jon's second masterpiece of stainless steel a number of times in trying to get it to fit, and then used it as a welding spatter shield, it was time to send it back with the next set of requested modifications.

This time I've used a Shreddies packet to help with the template (I think the Rice Crispies last time was perhaps a bit frivolous) plus I managed to talk through exactly what was needed before the article was made which always helps.

And the above is what I got back, we kept the 'wings' which I had formed to fit past the exhaust pipes and I had Jon graft them onto a new 'u-channel' with a better cross section profile.

The result

Hurrah, I can finally finish scrabbling around under the fuel tank and diff with fitting this thing. It's done! Just the exhaust joints to deal once I'm happy with their fitment.

Happy New Year and much to report

I had no idea it's nearly a month since the last update, and there's much to say. The last 4 weeks have been spent frantically squeezing car time in around Christmas and December socialising activities.

I had held off getting new spark leads until I was sure that the coil pack relocation would work with the body on, heater position, vacuum take off for brake booster etc.

Once I was happy a quick call to Fastlane performance with some measurements and 3 days later the below were in my possession.

These look in keeping with my other blue hoses however when I got the headers back on I wasn't happy with how the leads sat over the header flanges so I've lead them underneath and they fit much better that way.

The next challenge with the body on waste headers themselves, a very tight fit on both sides, the nearside unfortunately touching the cladding. See below

This unfortunately won't do... A call to Jon at AK suggests that the cladding wasn't factored in when making the headers. As we thought there would be a bit of room under the corner it was time to get out the hammer and bash sorry - reshape - the corner to allow for the header tube. If need be I could dremel a gap or take the hammer to the header itself but I was hoping not to.

Happily there was enough space with a bit of a tap. Photo to follow.

The picture above shows how tight the header is but also gives a view as to how my relocated spark leads look. 

Next up, somehow either it wasn't noticed by the company doing the rear hub refurbishment or more likely me being hamfisted, one of the studs on the offside rear hubs was damaged. This was discovered as I took the wheel off ready to fit the handbrake cable properly.

This wrote off one of the Image wheel studs which is a pain.

However an email chat with my friendly engineering neighbour Tony revealed he possessed a die nut - a thread cutting die with nut hex shape profile - meaning the small nick in the stud thread could be repaired as opposed to taking the entire hub assembly off and sending away for a new stud to be fitted.

Above, one damaged and unusable wheel nut... 1/2" UNF thread and below the die nut - meaning it can be turned with a spanner in situ as a full thread cutting die would have been a challenge to turn with the other studs on the hub.

These are really only for thread cleaning and repair as you cannot cut new threads  well with these. Not enough control.

The next instalment coming soon includes home made grommets, spacers, eccentric collared oval bearings and if Toad of Toad Hall was writing this probabaly a bit of 'poop-poop' too! 

I bet you're on the edge of your seats now?

De-Tubular Bellsing. Eh?

Remember this lot? The rather zany cooling hose run?

Well, it had to go.

Unfortunately I thought I'd got round the issue of the water thermostat housing clashing with the steering arm but having given it a trial fitting it was just too close for comfort. 1mm clearance but with a full engine rev likely a rock 4-5mm in that that direction will occur so that won't do.

Looking at the problem I could either order in a different angled stat cover from the states at great expense or work out another solution.

So looking at the main parts it's obvious the main action is centred around the seating of the thermostat in the housing itself. So making a spacer ring that allows the rotation of the thermostat and keeping the seating intact.

Whilst it will allow the flow of water to circulate into the car heater circuit a bit earlier than would normally happen the volume of water involved is negligible compared to that which is in the thermostat protected side of the water circuit and it's unlikely the car will ever be used regularly in sub zero temperatures so again it's not a big issue. I can add a small mod to the thermostat if it's a problem. 

So a quick bit of work saw the above fitted, spacer ring with new holes for the thermostat.

The photo doesn't show the new gap created in full but this works!

 

Chamfer done to help with steering clearance.

Gasket made and sealed with blue hylomar front and back.

And the job is done. More of a ubend than zany artwork but now much better functionally.